Search Results: MCHLine

Annotation: This toolkit provides information about implementing oral health services in Washington’s rural health clinics (RHCs). It discusses assessing a community’s oral health needs and how an RHC can address these needs, procuring funding and equipment, determining a dental encounter rate, recruiting staff, collaborating with primary care and emergency services, selecting health records software, and managing costs and patient processes. Getting started, implementing a program, program impact, and looking ahead are also addressed.

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Keywords: Collaboration, Community programs, Financing, Oral health, Rural environment, Rural health, State materials, Washington

Annotation: This paper provides information about initiating interprofessional networks that integrate and coordinate person-centered oral health care in rural communities. Topics include oral health as a national issue with rural implications, interprofessional practice and the oral-systemic health connection, creating networks and a learning collaborative, state offices of rural health and medicaloral expanded care initiation, and challenges and opportunities for innovation. Examples from Colorado, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina are included.

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• Executive Summary

Keywords: Collaboration, Colorado, Community based services, Health care delivery, Information systems, Oral health, Oral health care, Pennsylvania, Program coordination, Provider networks, Rural environment, Rural health, Rural population, Service integration, South Carolina, State initiatives, Systems development, Technology, Work force

Annotation: This brief describes demographics of rural America including trends in declining income, population, and health care resources. The brief also explores policy approaches that can serve to ameliorate losses in health care services.

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Keywords: Economic factors, Health services, Measures, Policy development, Population dynamics, Poverty, Rural environment, Rural populations, Statistical data, Trends

Annotation: This research brief provides information about the dentist and dental hygienist work force in New York state, including the concentration of dentists vs. dental hygienists, the concentration of dentists in urban vs. rural areas, the diversity of the oral health work force compared with the diversity of the state’s population, the ages of dentists and dental hygienists, and the educational attainment of dental hygienists. Sources and limitations of the data are described.

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Keywords: Age factors, Cultural diversity, Dental hygienists, Dentists, Educational attainment, Health disparities, New York, Oral health, Rural environment, Urban environment, Work force

Annotation: This toolkit contains seven modules that are designed to help professionals identify and implement a care coordination program. Topics include an overview of care coordination and issues specific to rural care coordination; care coordination program models and their characteristics; implementation considerations for each model; strategies to ensure program sustainability; program evaluation frameworks, data sources, and objectives and measures; methods for sharing program results, and examples of programs that have been implemented in rural communities.

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Keywords: Care coordination, Information dissemination, Model programs, Program development, Program evaluation, Rural environment, Rural health, Sustainability

Annotation: These modules are designed to help professionals identify and implement an oral health program. Topics include an overview of oral health in rural communities, program models and ways to adapt them to meet community needs, and strategies to ensure program sustainability. The toolkit also includes a framework for evaluation, methods for disseminating results, and examples of programs that have been implemented in rural communities.

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Keywords: Evaluation methods, Information dissemination, Measures, Model programs, Oral health, Program development, Resources for professionals, Rural environment

Annotation: This study examines two research questions: (1) do patterns of children's mental health diagnosis and service use differ by rural-urban residence? and (2) what is the effect of income and insurance type on use of mental health services? Topics include the effects of children's enrollment in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program on access and utilization of mental health services, availability of mental health services in rural areas, as well as a discussion of policy implications.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Barriers, Children, Health insurance, Mental health, Rural environment

Annotation: This policy brief presents a review of the literature on the oral health status of rural America and provides recommendations for meeting rural America’s oral health care needs. Topics include increasing access to oral health care, service reimbursement, training programs and recruitment, and research.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Health status, Literature reviews, Needs assessment, Oral health, Policy, Reimbursement, Research, Rural environment, Rural health, Training

Annotation: This report provides a current picture of the state of the research on food access, examining the relationship between the “food environments” in which people live and their diets, as well as the relationship between food retailing and community economic development. Topics include measuring change over time in terms of better access to healthy food, the role poor access to healthy food contributes to poorer nutrition overall, and how new healthy food retailing contributes to community economic development in tangible, positive ways.

• Full Report
• Executive Summary

Keywords: Research, Community surveys, Food, Food habits, Food supply, Low income groups, Nutrition, Public health nutrition, Racial factors, Rural environment, Socioeconomic factors

Annotation: This policy brief summarizes a study to assess rates of lifetime and current asthma for children across rural and urban regions within the United States. The brief describes the background and purpose of the study, which examines how asthma may be related to rural areas adjacent or non-adjacent to larger population centers, to variation in measures of air quality, to varying levels of agricultural and animal production, and to other characteristics such as obesity, race/ethnicity, or health insurance. It includes a summary of the study results; a discussion of policy implications; and tables that indicate the rates of asthma according to rural or urban designation and the statistical chances of developing asthma based on different variables. The study was funded by the Office of Rural Health Policy, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources, Health Resources and Services Administration, Office of Rural Health Policy.

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• Policy Brief

Keywords: Asthma, Policy development, Regional factors, Rural environment, Rural health, Studies, Urban health

Annotation: This document examines ways that oral health leaders can leverage the safety net health care infrastructure to provide services in underserved areas. The document describes a public-private partnership to produce sustainable investments to reduce oral health access barriers and work force shortages in Kansas. Topics include building a network, the Dental Hub and Spoke Model, return on investment, results, and lessons for foundations.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Barriers, Clinics, Community based services, Kansas, Oral health, Philanthropy, Public private partnerships, Rural environment, Underserved communities, Work force

Annotation: This report presents recommendations for suicide prevention in rural communities. The report begins by presenting the rural context for suicide prevention and then goes on to discuss promoting help-seeking behaviors, data and surveillance, clinical care services, screening and identifying rural adolescents at risk for suicide, training gatekeepers, strengthening support during bereavement, and supporting rural suicide-attempt survivors.

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Keywords: Access to care, Adolescent behavior, Attempted suicide, Bereavement, Health services, High risk adolescents, Rural environment, Rural population, Screening, Suicide, Suicide prevention

Annotation: This report, based on data from the National Survey of America's Families, examines rural-urban differences in children's mental health service use, and which factors may mediate or reduce such differences. Areas examined include: (1) What is the mental health need of children, age 6 to 17? (2) What percentage of children, with an identified mental health need, used a mental health service in the past year? (3) What role does family income and type of insurance have on the use of mental health services by children?

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Keywords: Medicaid, Adolescent mental health, Child mental health, Demography, Insurance, National surveys, Public policy, Rural environment, Socioeconomic factors, State Children's Health Insurance Program

Annotation: This issue paper discusses issues and strategies for oral health work force recruitment, retention, and utilization. Topics include dental work force shortage, Medicaid reimbursement, expanding the dental team, and the connection between primary care and oral health. Recommendations to improve the oral health status of rural America endorsed by the National Rural Health Association, a summary, and a list of resources are also presented.

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Keywords: Work force, Children, Dentists, Health personnel, Medicaid, Oral health, Provider participation, Recruitment, Reimbursement, Rural environment

Annotation: This working paper reports the findings of a study investigating rural dentist issues, such as demography, training, practice characteristics, staff, and job satisfaction, in Alabama, California, Maine, and Missouri. The paper highlights the survey methodology, findings, and limitations and discusses responses to issues including work and staffing patterns, vacancy rates, Medicaid participation, and job satisfaction of rural dentists. Perspectives of oral health professionals on issues related to access to care are also discussed. Appendices provide the survey questionnaire for each state, plus state pamphlets presenting statistical data of individual state findings. A summary is also available as a separate document. The summary presents a project overview and provides charts and statistics on dentist demographics, dental hygienist and dental assistant vacancy rates, and dentist participation in Medicaid.

• Working Paper
• Project Summary

Keywords: State surveys, Access to health care, Alabama, California, Children, Demography, Dental hygienists, Dentists, Job satisfaction, Maine, Missouri, Oral health, Professional training, Provider participation, Questionnaires, Rural environment, Statistical data, Surveys, Work force

Annotation: This manual describes a process intended to help agencies determine who are the key players in a rural community and to collaborate with them to develop an effective public awareness and child find program (i.e., programs to identify children with disabilities or who are at risk for disabilities and thus who are eligible for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)) for the community. The manual is divided into nine sections. Section 1 is an introduction. Section 2 outlines what an agency and facilitator need to implement the project. Section 3 discusses objectives and expectations of the core organizing team. Section 4 provides ideas for planning and leading team meetings. Section 5 defines basic principles and elements of marketing. Section 6 emphasizes the importance of planning for evaluation and contains a variety of forms for collecting information and data. Section 7 discusses marketing strategies. Section 8 provides a list of resource materials. Section 9 includes sample formats for organizing effective team meetings.

Keywords: Children with special health care needs, Chronic illnesses and disabilities, Collaboration, Communities, Eligibility, Public agencies, Public awareness campaigns, Rural environment, Rural population, Social services

Annotation: This report provides information on poverty trends and demographic characteristics of the rural poor. The report also documents large metro-nonmetro gaps when poverty is analyzed by race, ethnicity, age, and family structure. The report describes rural poverty overall and discusses the dimensions of poverty and regional characteristics of poverty. Much of the information is presented in figures, tables, and maps. The back page of the report includes definitions of "poor" and "rural" as well as more information about poverty research at the Economic Research Service.

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Keywords: Age factors, Demography, Ethnic factors, Families, Poverty, Racial factors, Rural environment, Rural population, Trends

Annotation: This report, which focuses on the 14 million children who live in rural America, seeks to increase the visibility of rural families by providing data-based information about their social, economic, and demographic characteristics, and by comparing the status of families and children living in rural and urban areas. Statistical information is presented in figures and tables throughout the report.

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Keywords: Children, Demography, Economic factors, Families, Poverty, Racial factors, Rural environment, Rural population, Social factors

Annotation: This report describes a study of migrant and seasonal farm workers in Chester and Adams counties, Pennsylvania. Topics include how the study population is defined and characteristics of the study counties and Pennsylvania's migrant and seasonal farm workers. The study methodology is detailed and results are discussed including demographic characteristics, food choices and influences on food choices, dietary acculturation, food sufficiency practices, and nutrition education. Focus group and key informant interviews are summarized and discussion of barriers to achieving good nutrition, meeting health care needs, and participation in food assistance programs are highlighted. Additional discussion provides conclusions and policy considerations.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Barriers, Farm workers, Health services, Hispanic Americans, Migrants, Nutrition, Pennsylvania, Rural environment, Social services

Annotation: This book describes the strategic plan and development of the Children's Village of Yakima, WA, a center for children with special health care needs located in an isolated rural area characterized by lower-than-average income. The book discusses a various aspects of the center and is divided into the following chapters: (1) a history of family-centered thinking; (2) initial development; (3) fundraising; (4) steps to implementation; (5) choosing complementary services; (6) infrastructure for the model; (7) evaluating an integrated service model; and (8) successes and future challenges.

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Keywords: Case studies, Children with special health care needs, Family centered services, Health facility planning, Program descriptions, Program development, Rural environment, Service delivery, Washington